A Kick in the Pants
by dollfacen'pipe
Summary: as for the title...it seemed appropriate. 2 nights after the genetic opera, grilo, rated T for suggestive stuff and graverobber being...well, you'll find out. um, R&R if u like...i'm new, and this was written past 1 in the morning. just sayin. One-shot.


"That doesn't have any effect on you, does it?"

He glanced at the raw-boned tower, red-and-white fluorescent sign glowing brighter than the moon in the ever-present fog. Right now, there were hundreds of others looking at that sign. The business man feeling a sickening envy in his stomach, the politicians feeling the stirrings of ambition, a bone-deep need to tear their way to that bright, glowing top. The girls and boys touching their imperfect faces, unimpressive bodies, and imagining the way they'd look once they saved up that last grand, worked a few more hours, turned a few more tricks in some stranger's apartment or unassuming car.

There were the dissipated, the junkies, past-payments in alleyways like this, looking at the sign and feeling the overpowering need for the next fix, the desire, greed, the fear. The Fear most of all.

He smiled.

"No. No it doesn't."

He leaned against the wall in a relaxed swagger, and looked her up and down in a way that felt like a violation. Clunky boots, white legs. Childish body hiding in a trench coat that was probably filched from a dumpster, hacked short enough to bare her thighs, and—this was new-reveal a sheafed knife strapped to one leg. White smudge of a face, framed with black hair. Just enough baby fat to partially conceal the new gauntness in her cheeks. He had seen twelve-year-olds that looked more threatening—and certainly more appealing. But it was her eyes that made her a paradox: rimmed in black, revealing something pulsing, raw and bloody. Something that had been broken into a thousand pieces in the cruelest way possible, held together by sheer will. She held herself straight, but those eyes said she could shift into a feral crouch at any moment. _Mmmm…she's lovely._

"I didn't come here for that." Her eyes darted to the small little gun he was fingering—out of habit, not suggestion. It was a tell, really. He put his hand back in his pocket. Merchandise was merchandise was merchandise, and for paying customer. Too bad…Hmmm…_Nothing wrong with a little innocent fantasizing…_No. Stop that. What was so appetizing about this little scrap, anyway?

"You're leaving." Obviously. She had a bag slung over her shoulder, gripped with white knuckles—probably a raid of the abandoned house…though how she had managed to get in, he didn't know. She certainly didn't have any other choices, with Blossom, Bubbles, and Buttercup after her.

"You're coming." She blushed the moment the command was out of her mouth—as just that, something between a statement and an edict, not a question. "I mean, I was just—wondering—I thought…It doesn't make any sense for you to, I don't even know you…" She trailed off inaudibly. "I didn't come here to—I just came to—thank you. I guess."

Inarticulate as always. Life-destroying tragedy hadn't changed her _that_ much, then. _We'll need to work on that…_

"Why?"

"What?"

"_Why _are _you_ thanking _me_?"

"I—don't know." She said lamely. She looked down at her feet, embarrassed. "I…I don't know why I came. I don't even know you." Pause. "I probably should be angry. Considering your part in…all of this." She gestured at the dilapidated alley, and at herself. "You started it all, didn't you?" He felt a surge of-guilt? No. Grief. Grief for the loss of the one unstained soul of this city. Because no one would stay pure for long after what she had been through two nights ago. And of something else. The feeling he had had from the first moment he had seen her. A tugging in his stomach, like pain, but sweeter.

"You said you wanted to go outside, darling. I'm not the cause of this world. I just showed it to you…actually, the 'start of it all' is dead." She looked away, at the graffitied wall, mask-faced.

He sighed. "I wasn't talking about your beloved Repo Man." He was always flippant, but this time something like sympathy—had he even used sympathy before?—stained the sentence. It was as close as he got to "I'm sorry."

She heard it, though, and looked up at him again, a tentative smile, those eyes. _She's so tempting…_

_It's because she's innocent. You don't have a right to touch that…you know what you are._ But that _was_ who he was, wasn't it? He corrupted. _Do I? I always thought it was the Largos who burned the world, and I was just the wry narrator, dealing out props for the slaughter. _It was a paradox: He wanted to protect her. He wanted to take her. He wanted to believe she was different than all the vermin in this city, better than them._ Stronger than me. _But after the Opera, she couldn't be, could she? _Screw it…_

He could be her protector, if he wanted to. But he wanted to play with her more.

"You know," He detached himself from the wall and closed the few feet between them in one lazy step, resting his fingers one at a time on the gun, "You don't actually need to leave, to avoid the Terrible Trio." Lightning fast, he grabbed the holster and slammed her against the alley wall. She was still gasping when the cold needle somehow got to her neck, and his hand on her stomach, holding her to the slimy bricks. "There are lots of hiding places in this city. Places they'll never find." He smiled his best Graverobber's Smile, the one that made people gape and hurry away, the one that made fear and desire shine in the eyes of his faithful disciples—the dregs of the streets. He slid his hand up over her chest, possessive and confident, and leaned down until his face was beside hers. He lowered his voice to a growl. "I know all of them. I can show you." He pressed the gun to her skin enough to send a trickle of blood into her collar. "I can make you forget." A whisper. She started breathing harder as his teeth brushed her neck.

He dropped the gun and pulled her close to him, leaving a trail of burning kisses up her neck. He looked into those bloodstained eyes. There was the fear, the anger, the shock...and the want. The desire that mirrored his own-one that neither of them should have. And worse, something that fueled beast inside him as much as it told him he should stop: tenderness. There was that bittersweet tug inside him again. He stifled it with her skin, running his hands under her jacket. Her hands wormed there way to his neck, and moved his face to be directly in front of hers. Something other than jagged lust took over him for the space of a moment-gently, he pressed his lips to hers. And then-

She shoved him back, cocked her leg to her chest, and kicked him between the legs—HARD. He slammed into the opposite wall.

In the pain, it took him a few seconds to find his voice. He slid to the ground, trying to decide which was worse—the pain in his head or the pain down below.

Pain down below, definitely.

"Shit. _Ow_…." He moaned and tucked his hands between his legs in the fetal position. She stood over him, looking rather stunned with herself. "Couldn't you have just said 'I'm not ready for this step in our relationship'?"

"I…er…sorry." She tried to smooth down her hair unsuccessfully. Her jacket was still hitched up around her waist, but somehow his ardor wasn't particularly strong at the moment. She made a motion to bend down to him, than seemed to think better of it and just stood awkwardly above him.

"I think you broke something." He groaned again, and winced as he rested his head on the wall. "_And_ you gave me a concussion."

"Um. Are you okay?"

He glared at her balefully. "If you hit someone hard enough with a pillow, it hurts. You just _slammed _me into a _brick wall._" He made a face and closed his eyes. "I'll never be able to fuck again…"

"Sorry, did I _overwhelm_ you?" She smirked.

God, today was surreal. First a female _doesn't _want him in her pants, and now Shilo Wallace was making jokes...

She picked up her bag and turned away, then turned back. "Is there anything I can…um…do?"

"Where are you going again?" She looked a bit surprised, possibly because she was having second thoughts about spending time with a man who had just tried to have his way with her in an alley that contained enough STDs and drug paraphernalia to be Amber Sweet's bedroom.

"I don't know. Far away from here." She looked at the sign again. Blood and bone, towering over them, always watching.

There was a long, long pause. She wanted him to go, still. This was how alone she was-enough to grasp for anything to call hers, even the man with a painted face and a bag full of drugs.

"If you want to help me, you can go there as fast as possible." He watched with grim satisfaction as her face fell. "And maybe, just _maybe,_ I'll be able to do my job without all the constant interruptions." Condescension turned up to full blast.

For a moment she looked like she might cry, but her face reassembled to the emotionless mask. "Fine." She turned and walked back down the alley, fast, holding herself too stiffly. He knew she would keep on her armor until she got on a train or bus or whatever she would use as her way out. And then it would come crumbling off, and she would realize—she was all alone. And no one would be coming after her. Then she would cry like a little girl. He smiled at the thought.

If no one else was able to escape, why should she?

Of course, maybe she wouldn't make it wherever she was going. For all she knew about the world, she probably wouldn't even make it past city limits. She would just be another girl taken in some alley.

Captured by the GenCops who had pasted her face on every wall, every screen.

Left for dead in a pile of bodies.

He imagined some other dealer sticking a needle in her body and cursing her as he found no magic blue potion.

She was fading into the smog and shadows. He could go back now, to the scalpel sluts and addicts, back to his reigning dominion, with an endless crowd hollow bodies, hungry eyes, spread legs. To the dissipation that was his personal comedy. "Hey—HEY KID!"

.She kept walking. He grimaced, took a breath, and then—

"SHILO!"

The dark little figure stopped and turned, its face a pale smear in the smoke. _She's beautiful._

He staggered to his feet, and muttered a curse as his head and nether regions simultaneously throbbed. He swiped the gun on the ground, and stood up.

"Wait the fuck up, I'm coming!"


End file.
